cockroach in the classroom

This is a picture of the insect found crawling through my classroom this morning as my students and I were nobly discussing Chaucer. I was oblivious to it until I heard a muffled gurgling sound, which I mistook to be someone's cell phone going off. But it wasn't a cell phone; it was a teensy scream, and it was quickly followed by more screams, as well as a mass scuttling away from the offending critter--which swerved and made a beeline right for me.

It was an American Cockroach. I didn't even know we had an American Cockroach until today. I thought we had just ordinary cockroaches, like everyone else. But we do: and for a cockroach, it's not all that bad. This one was quite large--maybe an inch and a half long--and it had elegant curvy antennae, like a moth.

Always cool in the face of a crisis, I opined, while backing up against the wall, that it should be removed to another classroom (preferably one in use). But instead a heroic student seized the cockroach by the antenna and flung it out the window, where it could do no further harm.

I may have to give her extra credit points.

At least American Cockroaches don't scream. There is one breed of cockroach that does, you know. My parents had the misfortune of finding one in their house. They said it was huge and black and slimy-looking, and when they tried to corner it, it let out a horrid, angry screeching noise at them, as if it were cursing them.

They were still talking about it two months later.

According to my extensive research on the subject (via Google), only one species of cockroach screams: the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. (Though for the record, my mother insists this was not a hiss, but a screech.) I have no idea what it was doing in my parents' California bedroom.


And now for something completely different:

A Ghost Update

Landlord Sues Restaurateurs Over Ghosts

So you see, I'm not just making this stuff all up. But exactly what are these guys really seeing out there?

That's what I want to know.